02/18/2013

DIY: Train Table

Jude has had a train set since before he was born. During an IKEA shopping trip for "baby stuff", my dad and husband filled the cart with only the nursery essentials: all manner of wooden track pieces and accessories.

For a long time, this epic collection of track and trains lived in a storage bin in the living room. Every once in while, Jude would get it out and build a grand railroad that would promptly have to be cleaned up before someone broke an ankle.

It was fun, but a bit of a hassle for me, and honestly not Jude's favorite thing to play with. Yet, every single time we visit the toy store, he spends the entire time at the train table.

Our house, while friendly, is very small. We don't have room for a traditional train table. But we do have room for a rad DIY trundle train table!

We started with an IKEA table top that was headed for the donation pile, but a piece of plywood would work as well. Jason added four small locking wheels.

I covered the top in green felt (spray adhesive worked great), and then got to work making a few moveable landscape features (simple shapes cut from more felt).

The track doesn't slip around on the felt, so there is no need to nail down the pieces. This way the whole scene can be changed at will, which I love, because for me building the scene is the funnest part! I added little velcro dots to the signs to stop them from falling over, but everything else stays pretty well as is.

The best part? The whole thing slides neatly under the bed. We plan to add a few more felt features (I would really love to attempt something like this), but for now I'm just glad the trains are actually getting played with (and I don't have to keep cleaning them up).

Comments

DIY: Train Table

Jude has had a train set since before he was born. During an IKEA shopping trip for "baby stuff", my dad and husband filled the cart with only the nursery essentials: all manner of wooden track pieces and accessories.

For a long time, this epic collection of track and trains lived in a storage bin in the living room. Every once in while, Jude would get it out and build a grand railroad that would promptly have to be cleaned up before someone broke an ankle.

It was fun, but a bit of a hassle for me, and honestly not Jude's favorite thing to play with. Yet, every single time we visit the toy store, he spends the entire time at the train table.

Our house, while friendly, is very small. We don't have room for a traditional train table. But we do have room for a rad DIY trundle train table!

We started with an IKEA table top that was headed for the donation pile, but a piece of plywood would work as well. Jason added four small locking wheels.

I covered the top in green felt (spray adhesive worked great), and then got to work making a few moveable landscape features (simple shapes cut from more felt).

The track doesn't slip around on the felt, so there is no need to nail down the pieces. This way the whole scene can be changed at will, which I love, because for me building the scene is the funnest part! I added little velcro dots to the signs to stop them from falling over, but everything else stays pretty well as is.

The best part? The whole thing slides neatly under the bed. We plan to add a few more felt features (I would really love to attempt something like this), but for now I'm just glad the trains are actually getting played with (and I don't have to keep cleaning them up).

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